But actually, I am being prevented from smoking. I am being prevented from smoking around a table, while relaxing and enjoying my beer, talking to my friends. Instead, I must stand outside with no drink and only the company of my fellow exiled smokers. So yes, someone is being prevented from smoking. It’s me.
Look, what I’m trying to say is that this type of legislation crosses the “Big Brother” line in my opinion. With the same rationales, we could legislate against perfume, bad breath, cars, incense, farting, whatever. It is not fair to discriminate against people, and that is what this legislation does. By seeking to protect non-smokers (which is a reasonable goal) we have overcompensated. We cannot eliminate all “bad things”, not even by living in a plastic bubble (remember, toxic plastic solvents!). I’m just saying, where are smoker’s rights to smoke comfortably in a bar, and why aren’t they being protected along with everyone else’s rights?
In California, we haven’t been able to smoke in bars legally since 1998. I used to enjoy smoking a cig or two when out having a beer, or occasionally a cigar, as this pub was just a block down the street from a cigar store. On the last night of legal public smoking, December 31, 1997, I smoked a cigar which I had carefully saved until about 23:15, so I could smoke it until approximately midnight.
I miss being able to smoke, but the positive side of of it is that my clothes don’t smell like smoke anymore when I come home. So you could say it’s a wash for me.
My two pence as chainsmoking foreigner living in Ireland.
-Are less people going to the pub? I don’t have the figures, but I’d say so because of conversations with people, landlords and by simply just being in pubs. Of course there aren’t scientific measures, but as I have seen no official figures there isn’t any other way I could judge it. The drop isn’t huge, though. As **Twist of Fate ** said, not going isn’t really that great an alternative.
-The main upside I can see is that I have made quite a few new friends on street corners or in backroom in pubs.
-Overall though it just put me in a really bad mood. I still fail to see why we can’t have non-smoking bars and smoking bars side by side so we have a choice. Barstaff could also choose their working environment. If smoking in pubs is really that bad for the non-smokers than the non-smoking pubs should do a roaring trade. They’ll be so clean and airy and healthy that we will all eventually want to go to them and the smoking pubs would go out of business. Wouldn’t happen, you reckon? Well, then what business does the government have to make it so?
Actually, this case was so long ago that I’m not sure the laws against sexual harassment were really developed then. It might well have been legal. Would that make it OK?
It’s not the smokers I’m talking about.
How about removing the absolute certainty that they will be working in a smoky atmosphere? That way, people working in bars would have the same protection everybody else has against unnecessary exposure to dangerous working conditions.
No you aren’t and facile, demonstrably false statements like this don’t help your argument. You can still smoke, you just can’t do it wherever you want to. All governments put time place and manner restrictions on activities that can harm other people. Why should smoking be different from anything else?
It’s not the same rationale. Smoking isn’t barred in pubs because it’s unpleasant, but because it harms the people working in pubs. Nobody ever caught cancer from somebody else’s bad breath.
Good question. Please cite the legal document which gives you the right to smoke in a bar.
As the saying goes, “your right to swing your arm ends at my face”.
Spectre:
Few Californians smoke, but a lot of Californians who frequent bars smoke (or they did when I was living there, anyway). The ban still worked out.
Pookah:
I wouldn’t have a problem with the government offering significant incentives to bars that ban smoking, or conversely allowing smoking bars upon payment of a significant fee. That probably would be the most logical solution. But in its absence, making people go outside to smoke is preferable to damaging the health of everyone inside.
Why the fee/incentives? Presumable there is call for non smoking venues. You are worried about your health, which is your good right. I presume bar staff equally worried their health can be found also, since this seems to be such an issue. If there are so many people wanting to drink and/or without smoke then why would these smoke free pubs not be economically viable without subsidies?
Mind you, if this would be introcuded I’d cough (ha ha) up the fee.
I realize this has progressed into a full-blown great debate, but I’ll just throw my two cents in anyway:
I used to live in a state where smoking is permitted in bars (Georgia) - I loved it. Smoked a few if I felt like it. Felt like it went hand in hand with getting drunk and hanging out with my buddies. I was just as outraged as everybody else when I heard about California banning it.
Then I actually moved to California, where as previously mentioned, smoking is NOT permitted in bars. At first it was a pain in the ass. I thought it was stupid and pointless to make everybody go stand outside to smoke. But gradually, I got used to it.
Now when I go to other states where smoking in bars is allowed, I hate it. It stinks, and it makes my clothes stink. Plus at the types of bars I frequent, when I got home it felt like I had chain-smoked a pack.
So count me as a convert! Ban it in bars! Just leave me alone on the beach, dammit! (referring of course to the fact that Santa Monica, California has now banned smoking on public beaches).
Perhaps to simplify griffen2’s argument, it could be re-metaphored to avoid the illegality of harrassment:
It’s unhealthy to be a trawlerman. The industry has a high number of injuries and fatalities. However, when you sign up to be a trawlerman, you know that these dangers exist. Shouldn’t the same principle apply here?
(The above is me being a devil’s avocado, by the way: I do actually agree with the principle of the ban, though not the manner in which it has been implemented.)
That is the logical solution to me. If the demand for non smoking bars was there surely some entrepenurial type would have started a chain of them by now.
Why can’t a bar chose to be a smoking bar. Attracting people who want a smoke with their drink and letting non smokers know that smoking will happen there.
And the non smokers can chose to go to a bar that smells minty fresh.
In my personal opinion, the ban is great - its so nice to be able to sit in a bar and have a drink and not choke on someone elses smoke fumes or not enjoy your dinner because the gobshite at the next table didn’t have the manners to not light up when you’re eating.
Also, my fiance has quite serious asthma and smoking really affects him badly - I totally agree to a ban that allows him to breathe clearer air. I’m sorry if some people don’t like sitting outside and having to smoke there but it is their choice to smoke or not (and destroy their health in the meantime); their choice should not affect other’s health and wellbeing and, with the smoking ban in place, it doesn’t anymore.
I know the Irish have a very laid back “ah god, its only a little cig” attitude, but that’s really not good enough anymore; when smoking affects not only the smoker but everyone around them, I wholeheartedly support the smoking ban.
If this attitude is so popular, and it seems to be, where are all the voluntary non smoking establishments? Why did it take a law change to ensure that all those who craved pure air had somewhere to go? Why can’t people who don’t mind smokey pubs still enjoy them?
The ban is not about smoking in pubs it’s a ban on smoking in the workplace, so you cannot smoke somewhere were people are working, regardless of whether it’s a pub or not.
Someone I know was bemoaning the fact that they can’t smoke in pubs any more because it’s been banned. I asked her, “do you go to the pub just to smoke, or do you go there to socialise?” She goes there to socialise - so what’s her beef with the ban?
As for the effect it will have on business - you haven’t been allowed to smoke in the following (among others) for years: aeroplanes, buses, cinemas … how many of them went out of business as a result?
That argument doesn’t stand up though - ALL the pubs were full of smokers, so if, as you say, I shouldn’t go where I know its going to affect me then I’m effectively having to bar myself from every pub in the country because someone else chooses to smoke there (pre-ban that is). That’s hardly fair is it when I’m not the one affecting other’s health.
The bar owners didn’t choose to develop non-smoking establishments - why? Probably because they felt it’d reduce their revenue. I can’t deny that it seems that pubs are less busy since the smoking ban - again, purely selfishly I have to say, I don’t mind that at all, it’s nice to be able to get a seat in a pub and not to have to stand crushed at the bar.
Also, don’t forget that the whole idea behind banning smoking in pubs was a ban on smoking in the workplace, pubs are just included in that. It was to help with the health of the workers (under Health and Safety legislation) but I believe that it will affect the health of people in the wider society (given that they’re not forced to inhale second hand smoke and also given the numbers of people who’ve given up smoking since the ban was introduced).
Mostly because of mixed groups of smokers and non smokers.
Imagine you and 5 friends are going out for the night, one of you smokes. Most likely you will end up in a ‘smoking allowed’ bar rather than a ‘no smoking’ bar. Thus even though a majority of people would prefer to drink in a non smoking bar they’ll end up in a smoking bar so that the one or two smokers in the group don’t feel left out. The government’s intervention here is just a prod in the right direction for a society that was already moving to one where smoking was less socially acceptable (in my opinion you do not have a right to smoke in public, you’re currently allowed to smoke in public, not the same thing at all). I remember the similar arguments being trotted out about banning smoking in cinemas and buses, neither of which industry has collapsed.
Given that the government is not going to back down on this, what we’ll see in the next 12 months or so is a shake up of attitudes in the hospitality sector. Those licence holders with a bit of sense will realise that there are opportunities to be had here with a little cash investment (Covered beer gardens, moving to a more family orientated venture where income is spread out through the whole day not just a few hours at night). Sadly a few publicans will not change and their businesses will fail and they will whinge about how the government destroyed their business. Overall I think the long term effects will be very much positive, both for irish society and for those publicans who apply a little grey matter.